Wednesday, October 3, 2012

New logo: Kraft Foods

October 1 saw what is probably this year's largest shake-up in the grocery brand market as Kraft Foods was split in two. The North American grocery business was spun off into Kraft Foods Group, Inc., while the worldwide snacking company changed its name to Mondelez International (you can read more about the Mondelez corporate identity here).

A pleasant surprise after the break-up is that neither company will keep the "spark" logo adopted by Kraft Foods in 2009. Instead, Kraft Foods Group, Inc., has chosen to embrace its heritage by adopting a modified version of its classic shield as corporate logo. The most noticeable difference is that the name isn't set in all caps. The resulting typographical treatment doesn't sit too comfortably inside the red frame.

Other aspects of Kraft Foods visual communication are also touting heritage, with a friendly slab serif stencil typeface being used in ads and on the website. Some brands in Kraft's North American portfolio are Jell-O, Planters, Miracle Whip, Oscar Mayer, Maxwell House, Philadelphia and Velveeta.

Old logo was a classic and very beautiful- the new one is very poor typography wise the lower case a is too dominant, and don't see why being in lower caps makes for a better brand, as for the kraft foods 'spark' logo was that a joke...

I came across this post today - rather late, I'm afraid. I had a hand in this work and it was a fascinating project. It's easy to diss Kraft and other food manufacturers for selling 'junk food'. If you lay aside your prejudices for a moment, you'll find that many people would like to be scratch cooks, but don't have the money, time or aptitude. It's modern life where everyone has to go out to work. These people rely on businesses like Kraft to make good food (yes, it is good food) that you can prepare quickly and that your family will eat. The design programme set about changing peoples' views of Kraft - out of that came the Remade 2012 communications and the new logo (neither were finished by us, but were derived from our work).

I gave a public talk in Chicago with Jon Denham, Kraft's design chief at the time, about this work and I'd be happy to reprise it, with Kraft's permission, over a webinar (or in person) if anyone's interested. From a design and communications perspective it was a super-interesting project.